


Written by the Victors

by ashurbadaktu



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bullying, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashurbadaktu/pseuds/ashurbadaktu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hero is more than his deeds.  He acts by inspiring others to be the best of themselves as well.  The Winter Soldier knows this better than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written by the Victors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Autheane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autheane/gifts).



> Warnings for bullying and sexual harassment. Not beta read (sorry!).

When the Winter Soldier reads his own life on the plaque, reads the story that’s in a dozen different books on the life of James Buchanan Barnes and Steve Grant Rogers, it never seems right.  He knows how much he doesn’t know, feels the emptiness of his thoughts like a stone in his stomach, but he's sure about this and if he has to trust someone at this stage of the game, it might as well be him.  

He's read other things that didn't seem right to him before and he's found that by and large, they're pieces of the story that historians disagree with.  One book said that Jim Morita wasn't aware of his family's suffering in a relocation camp back in California, but his lips had curled up in distaste before he'd even finished the sentence; another book, with quotes directly from the man himself, had proved it wrong and he'd made sure to check the dates and the authors from then on to weed out the panderers and blind patriots if only to save himself the trouble and the violent urges.  

He had understandable issues with people coopting history for their own ends.

But every book kept the story the same, the story he knew was wrong, wrong enough that after reading the false words for the seventh time, he couldn't help himself from throwing the book against the wall, cracking the spine with a satisfing snap.  

Every book said that James Buchanan Barnes met Steve Grant Rogers one day when young Steve was defending a young girl from three ruffians.  Every book said that the girl ran off, leaving the man who'd become Captain America to face the bullies on his own and that he'd bravely faced them down despite blow after blow until a plucky young man, a pint-sized Bucky Barnes, had heard the ruckus and swept in to save the day.  Every book, every article, every special and plaque said the same thing:

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes met the day that Bucky saved the scrawny little punk from his own bravery and valiantly defeated the three thugs who'd been aiming to hand him his head on a platter.

And that was wrong.

In his mind, in the theatre behind his eyes, it was different.  There was a girl and her name didn't matter because she didn't matter.  She was there and she was a girl and they were bothering her because they were bored and the day was hot and none of them had money to go and grab a sweet from the shop.  The girl didn't have a name, but the boys did.  

One was named Tommy Sullivan and he was a year or two older than Bucky but he'd had to repeat the year because he hadn't gotten the hang of reading and he'd tried to fake it and his scores had shown it sorely.  Bucky'd known him since they were toddlers on the base together, both their fathers career soldiers, and while they spent as much time tussling as liking each other, they spent more time in each other's company than they did their own family.

The other was named Kevin Jepson, not that anyone called him that.  He was the second one in his family to wear the name, so the name that got shouted across the field or into a kitchen was 'Junior' more often than not.  Junior Jepson had a mean streak a mile wide and a tendency to start trouble to keep from boredom and it'd been his idea to start bothering the girl because he'd heard from one of the older boys that that was how you showed a girl you liked her.  Tugging her pigtails, reaching for the soft spots under her dress, pinching her arms until tears stung at her eyes.  It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last time and Bucky'd known that even as he rolled his eyes.

Because the third boy's name was Bucky Barnes and he was bored and hot and angry because his mother was dead and his father didn't seem to want anything to do with him and his stupid little sister'd gotten him in trouble by telling their Pops that Bucky's teacher wanted to talk to him about all the fights he'd been getting in after school.  Bucky wouldn't touch her because she was Junior's crush and he wasn't particularly interested in her or any of this, but it was something to do and hearing her squeak was kinda funny while she tried to run away.  

Except suddenly there was another boy there, scrawny and skinny and looking like he could get knocked over by the next wind off the docks.

He couldn't remember the words, couldn't remember anything that any of them said because it didn't matter, but he couldn't forget the boy and he couldn't forget the eyes.  They were the color of a summer sky, the water at the beach high up enough to only throw the faintest clear blue color onto the sand.  Hair that looked like the halo of an avenging angel in the low-angled afternoon sun and a nose like a stooping hawk that was too big for his face.  Pale skin with freckles just darker than that, darkened further by a high red blush on his cheeks that should have made him look ridiculous except that there was nothing ridiculous there.  

There was anger, bright and clear and burning like the sun itself in his eyes, hot even in the heat, hot enough that he felt his own cheeks turn red with shame and even a bit of fear.  It made no sense, the boy was tiny, skinny, nothing, half the size of Tommy's arm if that.  But his words, the look in his eyes, struck Bucky like a fist to the gut and he felt himself step back, step away, look at his companions and see them as if the mist had cleared from his eyes.

Wrong.  This was wrong.  The girl was small, young, too young for Junior and too young to have to deal with boys and their crushes, especially like this.  There wasn't anything usual or funny or interesting about poking her to see her fear, nothing entertaining about making someone else scared and hurt and shake.  And this boy, this scrappy, mouthy little son of a bitch stood in front of her, shielding her with all he had (and that wasn't much) to keep her from having to take it.  Cause she shouldn't have to. Cause she hadn't done anything to anyone, hadn't even talked to Junior before, hadn't asked for any of this and here they were, bigger and stronger and older and they didn't have the sense to know better than to go after someone just because they could.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion, Tommy's arm hauling back to knock the kid out of the way like the fly he was.  He knew Tommy, knew that he didn't let anything stand in his way if his temper was up, and he knew with absolute certainty that the second Tommy's fist hit the kid's jaw, he'd be out cold.  But before that, like a man possessed, his own hand moved, quick as a whip, and caught him.  Not knowing how, not knowing why that moment, he yanked Tommy back and brought up his other hand as it curled into a fist and knocked Tommy clear across the alley.

The sky-blue eyes went wide, a familiar voice gave a heavy gasp from behind him, and then he was spinning around to let his fist go flying at Junior Jepson like he'd just insulted the memory of Bucky's Ma.  Junior went down just like Tommy, the both of them tumbling into the garbage bags scattered next to the dumpster, both of them too shocked to do anything but hold their jaws and stare up at him.  They weren't alone, because the pipsqueak and the little girl were openly gaping until the girl saw her opening and decided that she wasn't about to look a gift horse or two in the mouth (or take her chances).

Then it was just the boys, just Bucky and his friends and the stupid little scrapper with the fire in his eyes.  Tommy got up first, shakey on his tree trunk legs, eyes stuck to Bucky like sweat in the heat.  Junior followed after, hands still on his face and the blooming bruise that'd be one hell of a black and blue as soon as a couple of hours had passed.  The two boys stared at Bucky like he'd grown a second head for what felt like forever until a noise echoed from the end of the alley and both of them decided at once to run like the devil was after them.  Bucky let them go, watched them leave, and finally turned to look at the blond boy, who was staring back at him.

And smiling.

Bucky stuck out a hand.  The kid, after looking him in the eye, took it.

\--

It took a while to write it all out, the pieces murky and awkward when he tried to put any of it into words because he doesn't think in words much anymore.  Words are difficult.  Finding the email address was easier, skills he'd been trained in utilized as naturally as breathing.  He stared at it for almost half an hour before he sent it, looked at the phone number he'd put on the bottom, and finally pressed SEND with the surety of pulling a trigger.  

It takes fifteen minutes, but the phone he'd bought the other day rings and he snatches it up like a drowning man before pulling it to his face.

"Bucky?"

He didn't know what to say, doesn't know how to explain why he'd done it, what it was supposed to mean.  It'd just come out of him and he'd needed... 

He didn't know what he needed. 

"You read the books, didn't you?" The voice was soft, quiet, like a whisper in a tiny apartment with thin walls.  

"They all get it wrong," he said finally, his voice rising every word, "They get it wrong and you let them get it wrong, didn't you?  You always let them get it wrong."

"It's not wrong, Buck."

"It's wrong!  I know it's wrong!  I remember. I remember that alley, I remember that girl, I remember you and it's wrong!  It's all wrong!"

I'm no one's savior.  I never have been.

"It's not wrong, Buck.  You swept in when I was about to get my ass handed to me and you saved me from those two like an avengin' angel."

"No!" and he heard his voice break, heard something else break, "I remember, I remember and I was one of them, I was going after her the same as them, I'm just the same--"

"You're not, Buck."  And he can't deny him, can't tell him no again.  The words choke in his throat before he can argue.  "I know you're not.  Saw it then, saw it now.  You saved me."

"I don't even know why I did it."  And they're not talking about Brooklyn, a lifetime ago.  Both of them know it.

"I know why."

And that's it.  That's the whole and the sum of it.  That's everything about them from the top to the bottom, from the beginning to the end of the line.  Steve knew him better than he knew himself, always had, had always seen right to the heart of him and known what was there, what was at the heart, what was underneath and anger and the pettiness and the stupid.  

He doesn't speak for a moment, doesn't know what to say as the feeling welled up in him, something beyond the sadness and the pain and the confusion.  It was the flying fist, the hand outstretched, the sniper's trigger finger pulled to drop a Nazi coming up behind his men.  Through all the bullshit, it was there, the piece of something blazing and blond and good that'd worked it's way into him before they'd ever left Brooklyn, no, the part that'd always been there but'd just needed someone to make him SEE.

The best part of him.  The part Bucky Barnes had never been able to see without Steve Rogers.  The part that was still there even though Zola and the Red Room and HYDRA had tried to convince him it was gone.  

"Where are you, Steve?"

That was the only thing he needed to know.

"Come home, Buck.  I'll be waiting."

And he didn't hang up the phone until he was standing outside of the apartment building where he'd shot a man dead, waiting besides the Harley, watching as those arms swooped out like a very different kind of angel to scoop him up and show him who he was again.


End file.
